How to Read a Tudor House

Hi it's Sarah the Tudor Travel Guide here and here I am outside the impressive Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire. Now I've done a separate video about the story of this place but I wanted to take the opportunity to show you around some of the common features of a castle. So if you get confused from your gatehouses to your garderobes, from your keeps to your kitchens, then I am going to be your guide today and by the time we finish you will know what to look out for on your next Tudor or medieval road trip. Let's go! Now the first feature I want to introduce you to is the gatehouse. Now here at Raglan it's a particularly fine specimen but of course any castle or major Tudor house or palace would have had a gatehouse. It was the main point of entry and this is where you would present yourself when arriving at the castle and if you were deemed worthy you would be allowed in. Now the chap who guarded the gatehouse was the porter and he had a specific lodge, the porter's lodge, so that's where we're going to go next. So we've just come just inside the gatehouse and usually associated with the gatehouse would be a room called the porter's lodge which as the name suggests was where the porter hung out and he would be the guy who would check your credentials and see if you were able to pass in or out of the castle. Now here at Raglan this is a guard chamber and the porter's lodge is just adjacent to it but this is a an arrangement that you would likely see in any kind of major castle or Tudor house. So having come through the gatehouse, my credentials are good, I'm going to be allowed inside and the next place we're going to head to is the outer courtyard. So why don't you come with me. So we've come through the gatehouse and now we are in this outer courtyard. Now at Raglan this has a specific name it's called Pitchstone Court but actually in many castles and Tudor houses this would simply be known as the outer courtyard. Now around the outer courtyard you would usually find either additional accommodation for visitors and also the service offices and kitchens associated with the day-to-day running of the household and this is exactly what we see here in these ruined ranges at Raglan. Now sometimes castles or in fact Tudor houses were single courtyard houses and the whole of castles ranges included the privy lodgings would encircle just one courtyard but in higher status castles and houses such as here at Raglan which is known as a palace fortress we have this double courtyard arrangement and dividing the outer courtyard where we're stood now and the privy inner courtyard was often a range which encompassed this the great hall. Now I want to take you into the great hall and show you how it was arranged. It's low and high end and what you could find off either of those sides. So why don't we go in through the main porch go into the great hall and see what we can find there. Follow me. So here we are in the great hall now this was the largest chamber in any castle or indeed Tudor house. It was the first of the public chambers and this is where the lord and lady might dine or feast. So every great hall had a high end. This was the end in which the lord and lady would sit. It was the high status end of the hall and then the low end which led off to the kitchens. Remember I mentioned the kitchens earlier? Well let's go and explore there first and look at what some of the common features associated with the low end of the hall might have looked like. So we're still in the great hall but I've just moved around so you can see what the low end of the hall might typically look like. Now when you visit any surviving castle or Tudor house look out for three different entrances leading from and to the low end of the hall. The central one very often would lead directly to the kitchens and the one on either side leading to the buttery and pantry respectively. This was a typical arrangement. Now we don't have it surviving here at Raglan but what I'm wondering is whether there was once a screen across the low end of the hall which if you like screened these three passages from the high status folk at the top of the hall. This would have been known as a screen and behind it would have been the screens passage such as you see at places for example like where that feature still survives intact. So let's just go exploring down the low end of the hall and let's see if we can go and find the kitchens. Okay come with me. So we've come along a passage from the great hall. Now at Raglan now of course the wall that would have made this passageway is long long gone so it looks like it's part of the outer court but this passageway brought us through to the kitchen and here you can see we've got the serving hatch and then through here we're going into the kitchen. So this is a very typical kitchen space. You have to imagine there would be a ceiling above us here and here we'd be in the heat and the steam of the kitchen. So on either side we can clearly see that there are two enormous fireplaces and in the side there we have this feature which to me looks like a bread oven and that would be typical of a medieval kitchen of course and over here we can see perhaps somewhat restored but one of the original fireplaces where of course the meat would have been turned on the spit. So here we have quite a typical kitchen arrangement. Not only is it at the low end of the great hall where all the food would be served but it is often in a separate building to the main part of the castle or palace because of course there was great fire risk in places like this and if it were to catch fire and it was separate from the building it would mean that perhaps the rest of the building might survive even if the kitchen went up in smoke. So my friends you have to imagine that we've come up from the kitchens laden with food and what we're going to do is take it to the serving hatch. So here we are at the serving hatch as you can see we're at the low end of the hall the high high status end of the hall is in front of us so on the other side let me show you what happens next. So here I am on the other side of the serving hatch possibly in the screens passage I can accept the food and I can take it on and serve it to those people who are feasting in the hall. So let's say I want to serve it to William Herbert himself who of course is the Lord of Raglan Castle. Let's go up to the high end of the hall and take our story from there. So here we are my friends at the high end of the hall this means we have made it we have arrived we are either part of the Lord's family or maybe one of his special guests. Now there is a feature here at Raglan which is quite typical of any great hall of the Tudor period and that is this fantastic aureole window and you typically found it illuminating the high end of the hall. Now that meant that the light fell on the most important people who were feasting in the hall and it was also a place to withdraw to if you wanted to have more private conversations with special guests or family members. So here at Raglan we've lost part of this wall at the high end of the hall which perhaps would have given us a clue as to how the Lord and Lady would have exited to their privy apartments but there is this doorway and I do wonder whether this served this function however what we do need to know is it would be typical to have a doorway just like this around this part of the and that would allow us to leave having feasted and go to find the privacy of our own privy chambers. So let's head that way. So before we go I wanted to cover just two or three more features the first of these is the chapel. Now I'm standing in what remains of the chapel at Raglan. Now I think it's true to say that in castles and Tudor houses the position of the chapel could vary a little bit but it was not uncommon that it was situated close to or adjacent to the Great Hall and that's exactly what we have here. The Great Hall is on the other side of that wall. Now the second feature I wanted to point out is in fact almost lost to time. You may see behind me there is an ornate window at the end of what was once a long gallery. Now I suspect that that long gallery was added during the 16th century because in fact long galleries were a Tudor innovation and not not part of medieval architecture. And in fact when you look up at those windows you may notice that they have a distinctly Tudor style. Of course long galleries were as the name suggests long large spaces usually relatively devoid of furniture which allowed people to promenade or take exercise when the weather was inclement because of course the Tudors and indeed their medieval forefathers enjoyed most of the time outdoors wherever possible. In a high status building like this hunting and hawking would be on the cards. So the final feature I wanted to talk to you about is the keep and we have a particularly fine example here. Now this keep at Raglan is a hexagonal keep but you can see that it was separate from the rest of the building. Now normally in a castle you would have an outer bailey which was like a large external courtyard surrounded by a wall and then usually a raised mound or motte and on top of that would be a central round or square keep. Now the arrangement's a bit different here at Raglan but we have the same setup. We have this strong tower separate from the rest of the building and as you can see it is in this instance surrounded by a moat. Now here at Raglan this was as with most castles a defensive feature. It meant that if the castle was under attack as a last resort the lord and his family could move into the keep. Kitchens here situated on the ground floor and there was a well which meant it could be self-sufficient. This would allow the lord and his family to resist any external attack for a sustained period and was an essential feature of a defensive medieval castle. Okay my friends well I hope you've enjoyed that little guided tour about common features associated with castles and great Tudor houses so when you next go on the road you know exactly what to look out for. I'll see you on the next road trip.